by Dean | May 16, 2018 | General
“And there was given him dominion [or authority], and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages [i.e., men of all languages] should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:14).
This authority, glory, and kingdom belong to Jesus Christ: He is the one whom all nations, to cite just one word in the second clause, will serve. Unsurprisingly, we find in Luke 4 that all nations have been turned over to the devil, who will not keep them. He will lose them. Readily we believe that once Jesus possesses these nations, He will not lose them: they will always be His.
Will they ever rebel? Not as long as the devil is out of the way. Rebellion stays at arm’s length when, in the future, all nations will gather at The Throne of the Lord to honor Jesus’ name and no longer will people follow their evil hearts (Jeremiah 3:17, NIV). Do understand that such people are an important element of an everlasting dominion.
by Dean | May 14, 2018 | General
The spiritually proud, over-rigorous follower of Christ is a figure too familiar in literature, but her appearance in the 1941 novel, A Woman of the Pharisees, by Francois Mauriac, does the book no harm whatsoever.
The Christ follower in question, Brigitte Pian, complacently butts into other people’s lives and ends up damaging them. She is not like the gentle, prudent Father Calou, whom she also damages. Brigitte’s stepson Louis narrates the woman’s story but, by and by, fails to do so without self-righteousness and a certain contempt for Brigitte. So, inevitably, there is sin and folly everywhere here, but also the idea that God truly values every human being.
Even when they suffer, as the book’s characters—Brigitte among them—do; but the suffering is not senseless. These people approach, or will approach, “the throne of the Great Compassion” (i.e. God) and, frankly, there springs up in the novel a hint about the universal salvation I believe in.
A Woman of the Pharisees (La Pharisienne in French) is a lucidly, wisely written novel which does not stint on human complexity. It is a great Christian novel.
by Dean | May 13, 2018 | General
A teacher named Rolfe narrates his older brother’s story in the Russell Banks novel, Affliction (1989), and even if he is not likely to be a wholly reliable narrator, he can surely be trusted in pointing out his brother’s deepening affliction. Wade Whitehouse, the 41-year-old sibling, is divorced from Lillian, the only woman he has ever genuinely loved, and painfully misses having his young daughter in his care. He struggles against the wrath of his half-mad father and harbors unreasonable suspicions about the men around him, at the risk, it turns out, of losing his job.
Wade’s life starts going down the toilet. For him to be is not really to live, for he is living with a “dumb helplessness.” Or he begins to live with it. Being is all that Wade has. A helpless man is not free. A Christian couple, Wade’s sister Lena and her husband Clyde bring to the family a set of traditional religious beliefs that their relatives don’t know what to do with. Lena and Clyde can be fatuous, but that they live lives distinctly separate from those of Wade and his father is understandable. The men’s behavior creates a maelstrom increasingly difficult to control.
Affliction is cohesive, thrilling and mature. It is better than much of Faulkner, and although it is not as profound as the best of Faulkner, to me it is just as powerful as it.
by Dean | May 10, 2018 | General
Title page to the original edition of the RSV Bible (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The angel of God said to the shepherds, “I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people” (Luke 2, RSV).
A great joy for all the people of the earth? All the people who have ever lived and will live? The angel could have been adverting to universal salvation. I can imagine some people submitting that he meant a great joy for all the people who duly follow Christ, but how could they know this? And, in point of fact, those who follow Christ are mentioned just a minute later by the heavenly host: “and on earth peace to men [and women] on whom his favor rests.” These are the saints. Are they mentioned twice? In my view, not likely. Doubtless other folks say the angel was adverting to all the people of Israel and that’s it. Again, how could they know this? “All the people of Israel” is not the phrase used, and in any case these anti-universalist souls would never believe that all the Jews are slated for great joy, just some of them. So much for Romans 11:26—“and so all Israel shall be saved.” And so much for Ezekiel 37.
by Dean | May 9, 2018 | General
“Conservatism, as a distinguishable social philosophy,” wrote Robert Nisbet, “arose in direct response to the French Revolution.”
Almost as an afterthought, Irving Kristol averred that liberalism inevitably “makes a mess of things” before people vote it out.
Vote it out, yes—because they keep seeing mini-French Revolutions, usually without violence but always a shabby mess, in their midst. Think of what happened after the frantic policeman in Missouri shot and killed Michael Brown. People start wanting something that at least approximates conservatism.
